I had the opportunity to visit the Bath Abbey while on my recent trip to Britain.
It is an outstanding place of worship. It has a very long and glorious history beginning in the 7th century. And it is very beautiful.
I was taken aback though, when I came across Raising Voices: Holy Sites the Pentecostal Appeal regarding social justice. Of all the injustices taking place in the world, today, including the murder of Christians all over the Middle East, the Abbey chose to focus on Israel.Four members of the Abbey, the Reverend Mason,The Reverend Evelyn Lee-Barber, Mr. Shean Bowers and photographer Reverend Jon Hoffman, went to Palestine (not Israel) in 2015 in part to stand with “the beleaguered indigenous Palestinian Church.”
These four emissaries chose to believe every word uttered by the Arab Christians, and it seems without verifying any of the statements. Their exposition is just another link in the long history of Jew hatred that began more than 1000 years ago under the reign of William the Conqueror in 1066.
I wrote to Reverend Edward Mason ([email protected])and pointed out many factual errors. I also informed him that I had spoken to several people in the Church and discovered that not all of his congregants are in agreement with his affiliation with the Arabs, but he refuses to listen to them. I have not heard from him, but this Jew hatred, especially in Britain, to which this Reverend is contributing, must end. If you agree that this must stop THEN I URGE YOU TO PHONE THE REVEREND AT (01225) 318267 or The Abbey Office, 12 Kingston Buildings, Bath BA1 1LT or call 01225-422462. You can tweet your concerns to @bathabbey and visit the website at www.bathabbey.org.
The Appeal is presented as a photo exhibit with some explanation.Unfortunately not all the photos are available on line but I do describe the ones that are pertinent to this article.
The following is an edited (for length if you can believe it!) version of the email I sent to the Reverend. Please take the time to read all of it. Sit down in a comfy chair, perhaps with a libation But read it. And save it so that you have facts at hand to respond to those who attack the only democracy in the Middle East and North Africa; the country of the people who gave the world the ethic that lets freedom ring!
I saw the photo of the poor Palestinian man. The caption read “An Arab man tries to go about his daily business.” The poor man was so inconvenienced, by a dead Jew of all things. A Jew, murdered by a Muslim, and the poor Palestinian was inconvenienced. And your group was unnerved seeing this coming fresh from England. After all what do you know about terror and murder of your own children? I was in England when the terror attack took place in Manchester. When I returned home via Manchester I was inconvenienced. As a matter of fact, since 9/11 and the never-ending Muslim terror attacks, all of us have been inconvenienced at airports, train stations, sports and entertainment venues. Bags are checked, questions asked. Freedom of movement is a thing of the past in the West- as it is in Israel; because of Islamic terrorism. But, Israel has the same right and obligation as Britain to protect her citizens.
You included a statement from a woman in Judea/Samaria that the Nakba is not taught to the Palestinians. “That the system of education for Palestinians is designed to make them ignorant of (their) history.”
This is patently false.
In 1948 the Arabs refused to accept a state while the Jewish people accepted the remnant of the British Mandate for Jewish Palestine. The British had already illegally and unilaterally given three quarters of the Jewish land to the Arabs-Transjordan-now Jordan. Then the Arab states attacked. And lost. Can you imagine the horror they felt? Arabs live under an honour/shame culture. Imagine the shame-the Catastrophe. The aggressor-the Arabs are now given the label “victim” by people like you. Did you call the Germans victims after WWII, or the Japanese?
Do you know what happened to the 850,000 Jewish refugees who forced out of their homes from the Muslim countries in which they had lived 700 years before Islam came into being and before Jesus walked the earth? Where are they, today?
Here is an excerpt from this in-depth report on education in the PA. I hope you will take the time to read the full report.
Finally, the children are taught that they can never make peace with Israel, as this battle is eternal.
“The PA schoolbooks present fighting against Israel as mandatory in the name of Islam. The books teach that the conflict with Israel is “Ribat for Allah” which is defined as “one of the actions related to Jihad for Allah, and it means: Being found in areas where there is a struggle between Muslims and their enemies.” [Islamic Education, grade 12, p. 86]. Israel cannot be recognized in peace because it is said to exist on Islamic land. The conflict with Israel is described as “one of the greatest of the Ribat, and they [Palestinians] are worthy of a great reward from Allah.” Finally, the children are taught that they can never make peace with Israel, as this battle is eternal:
“Today the Muslim countries urgently need Jihad and Jihad fighters in order to liberate the robbed lands and to get rid of the robbing Jews from the robbed lands in Palestine and in the Levant”Accordingly, Palestinian violence against Israel since Israel’s founding in 1948 is defined as: “resistance … acts of most glorious heroism.”
I included these links as well.
The PA’s defining Israel as “racist”
Here are more links to what is taught to the Arab children under the PA.
PA leaders repeatedly define Jesus as a Palestinian who preached Islam, thus denying not only Jewish history, but also the history and legitimacy of Christianity.
“The overall message that permeates the PA’s teachings about Israel throughout the school system is its total rejection of Israel’s most fundamental right – its right to exist.”
“… the Nakba [Catastrophe] that took place in 1948, when the Jews occupied Palestine and established their state on its land, and banished the Palestinian nation into exile and to neighboring states, after they tortured it, massacred, and stole its land, its homes and its holy sites.”
“Erasing Jewish history in the land of Israel is followed by the PA’s invention of ancient and modern histories that support its political ideology and claim to the land of Israel. The Holocaust and other aspects of Jewish history are alternately denied, downplayed or distorted. Another distortion is to hide from Palestinians that Jesus was a Jew who lived in the Land of Judea/Israel. PA leaders repeatedly define Jesus as a Palestinian who preached Islam, thus denying not only Jewish history, but also the history and legitimacy of Christianity.”
“The new Palestinian curriculum… teaches students to be martyrs, demonizes and denies the existence of Israel and focuses on a “return” to an exclusively Palestinian homeland. Within the pages of the textbooks children are taught to be expendable. Messages such as: “the volcano of my revenge”; “the longing of my blood for my land”; and “I shall sacrifice my blood to saturate the land” suffuse the curriculum. Math books use numbers of dead martyrs to teach arithmetic. The vision of an Arab Palestine includes the entirety of what is now Israel, defined as the “1948 Occupied Territories.”
Then there is television.
The indoctrination of children and hate-mongering championed by the Islamist regime is reminiscent of the warped caricatures created by Nazi Germany to demonize Jews in the 1930s, say experts.
PA TV host longs for days of Palestinian terror, complains there is not enough violence
“A recent episode of the Hamas-affiliated television program Pioneers of Tomorrow featured a disturbing combination of talking bee mascot and a discussion of shooting Jews — all of them.
The Palestinian children’s program, which runs on Hamas’ state-run Al Aqsa TV station, has a history of glorifying suicide bombers and demonizing Jews.
“The indoctrination of children and hate-mongering championed by the Islamist regime is reminiscent of the warped caricatures created by Nazi Germany to demonize Jews in the 1930s, say experts.”
Now let’s talk about the statement that Gaza is occupied. Not only is Gaza not occupied, when the land was given for peace, all of the Jews living there were removed-ethnically cleansed. Yet, no Muslims were removed from Israel for peace. And there has been no peace since then. Are you aware that the Israelis left behind a huge greenhouse operation that Hamas then destroyed? And instead of building for their people-they take all the construction material and build tunnels for the purpose of entering Israel and killing the Jews. They also built five star hotels on the beach.
The al-Mashtal is Gaza’s first five-star hotel, providing vital jobs and training to the area. Photograph: Arcmed for the Guardian
Yes, Israel stops much of the traffic entering Gaza because they discovered they were bringing in war material. Egypt has destroyed the tunnels from Gaza and rarely opens the gate to let their Muslim brothers and sisters receive goods
In the Palestinian Area Abbas has built himself a beautiful mansion.” Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is constructing a $13 million palace in the West Bank, despite the country being crippled by financial woes.” I am surprised you didn’t see it on your trip to Ramallah.
Are you aware that Israel takes in sick people from Gaza and The PA? Did you hear about the sisters? One was getting cancer care in Israel and her sister accompanied her. She was carrying a bomb! “Two sisters tried to smuggle explosives into Israel from Gaza using tubes labeled for medication, taking advantage of an entry permit issued for one of them to seek cancer treatment, Israeli officials said Wednesday“
Is this acceptable to you and your congregation?
And then there is that wall in Israel. A wall that was built after women and children were murdered by Muslim terrorists. After the wall, the number of suicide bombing attacks dropped 90%-saving Jews and all people in Israel. “Even the Palestinian terrorists have admitted the fence is a deterrent. On November 11, 2006, Islamic Jihad leader Abdallah Ramadan Shalah said on Al-Manar TV the terrorist organizations had every intention of continuing suicide bombing attacks, but that their timing and the possibility of implementing them from the West Bank depended on other factors. “For example,” he said, “there is the separation fence, which is an obstacle to the resistance, and if it were not there the situation would be entirely different. I bet Manchester wishes they had had a wall to save their children.
You invited Sabeel to speak and share their views. Here are their views. One state- an Arab state, free of Jews. And then it will be free of Christians because Muslim countries don’t tolerate others. How many Christians are living a full Christian life in Muslim countries on the Middle East? Have you been to Saudi Arabia?
I left the Reverend with the antisemitic history of Britain.
WE WILL NOT END THIS SYSTEMIC HATE UNLESS WE ACT. SO…ACT! WRITE, CALL, TWEET
JUST DO IT
